1.
Alaska Natives
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Alaska Natives are indigenous peoples of Alaska, United States, Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures. They are often defined by their language groups, alaskan Natives are enrolled in federally recognized Alaska Native tribal entities, who in turn belong to 13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations, who administer land and financial claims. Ancestors of the Alaska Natives are known to have migrated into the thousands of years ago. Some are descendants of a wave of migration in which people settled across the northern part of North America. They never migrated to southern areas, for this reason, genetic studies show they are not closely related to Native Americans in South America. Throughout the Arctic and northern areas, the ancestors of the Alaska Natives established varying indigenous and they developed sophisticated ways to deal with the challenging climate and environment, and cultures rooted in the place. Historic groups have been defined by their languages, which belong to several language families. Arriving from Siberia by ship in the century, Russians began to trade with Alaska Natives. New settlements around trading posts were started by Russians, including Russian Orthodox missionaries and these were the first to translate Scripture into Native languages. British and American traders generally did not reach the area until the nineteenth century, in the 21st century, the numerous congregations of Russian Orthodox Christians in Alaska are generally composed mostly of Alaska Natives. Rather than hunting the marine life, the Russians forced the Aleuts to do the work for them, as word spread of the riches in furs to be had, competition among Russian companies increased and they forced the Aleuts into slavery. Catherine the Great, who became Empress in 1763, proclaimed good will toward the Aleut, on some islands and parts of the Alaska Peninsula, groups of traders had been capable of relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants. Other groups could not manage the tensions, Russians took hostages, families were split up, and individuals were forced to leave their villages and settle elsewhere. The growing competition between the companies, merging into fewer, larger and more powerful corporations, created conflicts that aggravated the relations with the indigenous populations. Over the years, the situation became catastrophic for the natives, as the Shelikhov-Golikov Company and later Russian-American Company developed as a monopoly, it used skirmishes and systematic violence as a tool of colonial exploitation of the indigenous people. When the Aleut revolted and won victories, the Russians retaliated, killing many and destroying their boats and hunting gear. The most devastating effects were from disease, during the first two generations of Russian contact,80 percent of the Aleut population died from Eurasian infectious diseases and these were then endemic among the Europeans, but the Aleut had no immunity against the new diseases. In 1971 the United States Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and it provided for the establishment of 13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations to administer those claims

2.
Native Hawaiians
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Native Hawaiians are the indigenous Austronesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii,140,652 people identified themselves as being Native Hawaiian alone. The majority of Native Hawaiians reside in the State of Hawaiʻi, and the rest are scattered among other states, especially in the American Southwest, another is that a single, extended period of settlement populated the islands. Early historians, such as Fornander and Beckwith, subscribed to this Tahitian invasion theory, king Kalakaua claimed that Paʻao was from Samoa. Some writers claim that other settlers in Hawaiʻi were forced into remote valleys by newer arrivals and they claim that stories about the Menehune, little people who built heiau and fishponds, prove the existence of ancient peoples who settled the islands before the Hawaiians. At the time of Captain Cooks arrival in 1778, the population is estimated to have been between 250,000 and 800,000, over the span of the first century after first contact, the native Hawaiians were nearly wiped out by diseases introduced to the islands. Native Hawaiians had no resistance to influenza, smallpox, measles, or whooping cough, the 1900 U. S. Census identified 37,656 residents of full or partial native Hawaiian ancestry. The 2000 U. S. Census identified 283,430 residents of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander ancestry, the Hawaiian language was once the primary language of the native Hawaiian people, today, native Hawaiians predominately speak the English language. A major factor for this change was an 1896 law that required that English be the medium and basis of instruction in all public. This law prevented the Hawaiian language from being taught as a second language, in spite of this, some native Hawaiians have learned ʻŌlelo as a second language. Nowadays ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi is the language of the State of Hawaii. The Hawaiian language has been promoted for revival most recently by a program of cultural preservation enacted in 1978. Programs included the opening of Hawaiian language immersion schools, and the establishment of a Hawaiian language department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, as a result, Hawaiian language learning has climbed among all races in Hawaiʻi. In 2006, the University of Hawaii at Hilo established a program in the Hawaiian Language. In fall 2006, they established a program in the Hawaiian Language. In addition to being the first doctoral program for the study of Hawaiian, both the masters and doctoral programs are considered by global scholars as pioneering in the revival of native languages. Hawaiian is still spoken as the language by the residents on the private island of Niʻihau. Alongside ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, some Maoli spoke Hawaiʻi Sign Language, little is known about the language by Western academics and efforts are being made to preserve and revitalize the language

3.
Native Americans in the United States
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In the United States, Native Americans are people descended from the Pre-Columbian indigenous population of the land within the countrys modern boundaries. These peoples were composed of distinct tribes, bands, and ethnic groups. Most Native American groups had historically preserved their histories by oral traditions and artwork, at the time of first contact, the indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the proto-industrial and mostly Christian immigrants. Some of the Northeastern and Southwestern cultures in particular were matrilineal, the majority of Indigenous American tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural lands for use of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had patriarchal cultures and had developed concepts of property rights with respect to land that were extremely different. Assimilation became a consistent policy through American administrations, during the 19th century, the ideology of manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Expansion of European-American populations to the west after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native American lands and this resulted in the ethnic cleansing of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches coming to be known as The Trail of Tears. As American expansion reached into the West, settler and miner migrants came into increasing conflict with the Great Basin, Great Plains and these were complex nomadic cultures based on horse culture and seasonal bison hunting. Over time, the United States forced a series of treaties and land cessions by the tribes, in 1924, Native Americans who were not already U. S. citizens were granted citizenship by Congress. Contemporary Native Americans have a relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes. The terms used to refer to Native Americans have at times been controversial, by comparison, the indigenous peoples of Canada are generally known as First Nations. It is not definitively known how or when the Native Americans first settled the Americas and these early inhabitants, called Paleoamericans, soon diversified into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes. The archaeological periods used are the classifications of archaeological periods and cultures established in Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips 1958 book Method and they divided the archaeological record in the Americas into five phases, see Archaeology of the Americas. The Clovis culture, a hunting culture, is primarily identified by use of fluted spear points. Artifacts from this culture were first excavated in 1932 near Clovis, the Clovis culture ranged over much of North America and also appeared in South America. The culture is identified by the distinctive Clovis point, a flaked flint spear-point with a notched flute, dating of Clovis materials has been by association with animal bones and by the use of carbon dating methods. Recent reexaminations of Clovis materials using improved carbon-dating methods produced results of 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon years B. P, other tribes have stories that recount migrations across long tracts of land and a great river, believed to be the Mississippi River. Genetic and linguistic data connect the people of this continent with ancient northeast Asians

4.
Native American identity in the United States
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Some people seek an identity that will provide for a stable definition for legal, social, and personal purposes. There are a number of different factors which have used to define Indianness. Facets which characterize Indianness include culture, society, genes/biology, law, an important question is whether the definition should be dynamic and changeable across time and situation, or whether it is possible to define Indianness in a static way. The question of identity, especially aboriginal identity, is common in many societies worldwide, the future of their identity is extremely important to Native Americans. Activist Russell Means bemoans the crumbling Indian way of life, the loss of traditions, languages and he remarks that there may soon be no more Native Americans, only Native American Americans, like Polish Americans and Italian Americans. As the number of Indians has grown, the number who carry on tribal traditions shrinks, Means says, We might speak our language, we might look like Indians and sound like Indians, but we won’t be Indians. There are various ways in which Indian identity has been defined, some definitions seek universal applicability, while others only seek definitions for particular purposes, such as for tribal membership or for the purposes of legal jurisdiction. The individual seeks to have an identity that matches social and legal definitions. American Indians were perhaps clearly identifiable at the turn of the 20th century, malcolm Margolin, co-editor of News From Native California muses, I don’t know what an Indian is. Some people are clearly Indian, and some are clearly not, Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller echoes, An Indian is an Indian regardless of the degree of Indian blood or which little government card they do or do not possess. Further, it is difficult to know what might be meant by any Native American racial identity, race is a disputed term, but is often said to be a social rather than biological construct. Russell contrasts this with the reminder that Native Americans are members of communities before members of a race, traditional definitions of Indianness are also important. There is a sense of peoplehood which links Indianness to sacred traditions, places and this definition transcends academic and legal terminology. Language is also seen as an important part of identity, and learning Native languages, some Indian artists find traditional definitions especially important. Crow poet Henry Real Bird offers his own definition, An Indian is one who offers tobacco to the ground, feeds the water, but thats not so easy to do and one has to earn the entitlement somehow. You have to have an experience of the world in order to formulate this idea. I consider myself an Indian, Ive had the experience of an Indian, I know how my father saw the world, and his father before him. Some social scientists relate the uncertainty of Native American identity to the theory of the nature of identity

5.
Bureau of Indian Affairs
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The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the U. S. Department of the Interior. The BIA’s responsibilities include providing health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives, located at 1849 C Street, NW, in Washington, D. C. the BIA is headed by a bureau director who reports to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. The current director is Michael S. Black, the current assistant secretary is Lawrence S. Roberts, an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. On January 1,2016, Roberts succeeded Kevin K. Washburn, a member of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma. The Office of Justice Services, directly operates or funds law enforcement, tribal courts, OJS funded 208 law enforcement agencies, consisting of 43 BIA-operated police agencies, and 165 tribally operated agencies under contract, or compact with the OJS. The OJS also provides oversight and technical assistance to law enforcement programs when. It operates four divisions, Corrections, Drug Enforcement, the Indian Police Academy, the Office of Trust Services, works with tribes and individual American Indians and Alaska Natives in the management of their trust lands, assets, and resources. Agencies to relate to Native Americans had existed in the U. S. government since 1775, benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry were appointed among the early commissioners to negotiate treaties with Native Americans to obtain their neutrality during the American Revolutionary War. In 1789, the U. S. Congress placed Native American relations within the newly formed War Department. By 1806 the Congress had created a Superintendent of Indian Trade, or Office of Indian Trade within the War Department, the post was held by Thomas L. McKenney from 1816 until the abolition of the factory system in 1822. The government licensed traders to have control in Indian territories. The abolition of the system left a vacuum within the U. S. government regarding Native American relations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was formed on March 11,1824, Calhoun, who created the agency as a division within his department, without authorization from the United States Congress. He appointed McKenney as the first head of the office, which went by several names, McKenney preferred to call it the Indian Office, whereas the current name was preferred by Calhoun. In 1832 Congress established the position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in 1849 Indian Affairs was transferred to the U. S. Department of the Interior. In 1869, Ely Samuel Parker was the first Native American to be appointed as commissioner of Indian affairs and it emphasized being educated to European-American culture. Some were beaten for praying to their own creator god, the bureau was renamed from Office of Indian Affairs to Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947. The rise of activist groups such as the American Indian Movement worried the U. S. government and they intended to bring attention to American Indian issues, including their demands for renewed negotiation of treaties, enforcement of treaty rights and improvement in living standards

6.
Alaskan village
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This is a list of Alaska Native tribal entities which are recognized by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. For related lists, see the List of Indian reservations in the United States, List of Native American Tribal Entities and this list pertains only to the state of Alaska, and is maintained by the U. S. Federal Government. For more detail on how Alaska Native villages came to be tracked in this way, the list is maintained in alphabetical order with respect to the name of the tribe or village. Leading words such as Village of or Native Village of are ignored for this purpose, ancillary information present in former versions of this list but no longer contained in the current listing have been included here in italics print. To view the Federal Register, please visit The Federal Register page of the GPO

7.
Punjabi Americans
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Punjabi Americans, are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in the Punjab, a region in northern South Asia. Sikhs have been a part of the American populace for more than 130 years, at the turn of the 19th century, the state of Punjab of British India was hit hard by British practices of mercantilism. Many Sikhs emigrated to the United States, and began arriving to work on farms in California and they traveled via Hong Kong to Angel Island, California, the western counterpart to Ellis Island in New York. Due to discrimination from Anglo Americans many early Punjabi immigrants in California married Mexican Americans, Punjabi farmers were also able to circumvent laws prohibiting their ownership of property by operating through American bankers. Most Sikhs started life in America as farm laborers, with eventually becoming landowners. In 1956, Dalip Singh Saund became the first East Indian-born person to be elected to the United States House of Representatives, at present Amarjit Singh Buttar is perhaps the only turbaned Sikh who holds elected public office. He was elected in December 2001 to the Vernon, Connecticut Board of Education for a four-year term and he has also been recently selected as the Chairman of the Board. Many Punjabi Americans have become successful in technology-related fields, Vinod Dham helped to develop the Pentium processor while Vinod Khosla and Sabeer Bhatia co-founded Sun Microsystems and Hotmail respectively. Aneesh Chopra served as the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States, appointed by President Barack Obama

8.
Tamil Americans
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Tamil Americans are Americans who are of Tamil ethnic origins, mostly from India and Sri Lanka and other diasporic centers such as Canada and the United Kingdom. In the second half of the 20th century, Tamils from India migrated as skilled professionals to the United States, Canada, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The Tamil American population enumerates over 130,000 individuals, central New Jersey is home to the largest population concentration of Tamils. New Jersey houses its own Tamil Sangam, sizeable populations of Indian American Tamils have also settled in New York City and the Washington, D. C. Metropolitan Area, as well as on the West Coast in Silicon Valley, the Tamil community in the United States is largely bilingual. A few universities, such as the University of Chicago and the University of California Berkeley, have programs in the language. The Tamil community is connected to the Hindu community, along with other groups from South India. In most Hindu temples in the United States, the prayers are in Sanskrit, however, in North Brunswick, New Jersey, the Tamil Temple conducts all the prayers and Tamil. The Hindu Temple in Houston, Texas, is dedicated to Meenakshi, there is an active Christian minority as well. Protests occurred in the United States, concurrently with other protests in other parts of the world and they were organized by local Tamil American groups, with the help of Tamil Canadians. Major protests occurred on several occasions in Washington, D. C. near the White House, Tamil Brahmans, The Making of a Middle-Class Caste. Narayanan, Vasudha, Tamils in David Levinson and Melvin Ember, American immigrant cultures, builders of a nation. Negotiating Tamil Identity in India and the United States, phD thesis, University of California, Berkeley. Image and Identity, Tamil Migration to the United States